Chapter Three #2
from what had to have been a sleepless night on my couch. I’m sure there will be many more. Chances are I won’t agree with
whatever Lily is cooking up—but I’m trying not to judge. I am here to support and protect, a regular Officer Ackerman-Petty.
At my little sister’s service.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
She scrolls and taps and then holds the phone up to me. I put on the spare pair of cheaters I keep in the cup holder. On the screen is a photo of a snowcapped mountain range set against a cloudless blue sky.
“Alaska,” she says.
I peer over the top of my glasses. She’s serious. “The Skolers took a Carnival cruise in Alaska last year,” I say. “They saw
whales from their cabin balcony.”
“A cruise? What are you, a hundred years old?”
“I don’t see what’s wrong with a—”
“No, gross. Stuck on a floating hotel with a thousand people? I want to be lost, not trapped. Check this out.” She goes back
to her phone. “I found this company—Grizzly Tracks Adventures. They take you all over, you go with a guide. You see the real Alaska. Into the wilderness and all that shit.” She puts the phone up to my face again, and I see a photo of a moose standing
in a lake, its reflection making a mirror image in still water. “You’ll see real glaciers. Hike up mountains. Camp under the
stars.”
“Okay, stop,” I say, holding up my hand. I hate to break up this fantasy my sister is spinning, but hiking? Camping? Lily
won’t eat outside on the patio until the electric bug zapper is on. “When was the last time you climbed a mountain?”
“I do the stair climber three times a week. How different can it be?”
“And camping? As in sleeping bags and campfires? Outside? You?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s not camping camping. Not for what it costs. It’s got to be more like, um, luxury camping. Like a hotel room but you can gaze up to the stars from your bed. And they set it all up for you. That’s what the
guide is for. Like a concierge.”
She swipes her screen and holds it up again. “Look at this. Come on, Big, you can’t say that isn’t breathtaking.”
I take the phone and push my cheaters up my nose. The photo shows two mountain ranges, gray and white and mean-looking. Running in between them is a hard, white river. I expand the photo until I see that the river is frozen, rocky ice.
“That’s a glacier,” says my sister. “A real damn glacier.”
“I thought a glacier was a giant floating ice thing. Like in Titanic.”
“That’s an iceberg. Jesus, Big, you’ve got to get out of New Jersey more often.”
I cluck my tongue and push the phone back at Lily. Who died and made her a geology expert?
Lily is winding herself up; her eyebrows rise with the scheme she’s hatching. I do feel grateful, even if only for a moment,
that she has forgotten about her cheating husband and her (in her own words) ruined life. Maybe she should go to Alaska and
commune with the grizzly bears.
“Here’s the thing,” she says. “I checked the website, and they still have openings for a group leaving in ten days.”
“Ten days?” I ask, feeling a tightening in my chest. The idea of planning a trip that quickly makes me sweat, and it’s not
even my trip. “That’s not enough time.”
“ ’Course it is. I’d leave tonight if I could. But you didn’t let me finish. They have two spots left. Two. That means we
can go together. I was serious when I said that before. I want you to come with me. You can watch out for me. I can’t do it
without you.”
“You want me to go to Alaska? To babysit you?”
Lily softens her tone. She leans away from her I need to lean on you tack. “No, Big. I want us to have an adventure. When was the last time you went on an adventure?”
“I’m not really the adventure type, Lil.”
“I know! That’s why it’s so important that we do this. You and me! Don’t you want to get out of here sometimes? Just go?”
I think about the list burning a hole in my pocket and the old woman waiting for me to pick her up and complain about the temperature of the pool or the hip-hop music the instructor thought was appropriate for a group of seniors.
I think about my adult children who will be asking what’s for dinner and the husband who will be ping-ponging around the house waiting for his wife to squeeze him in when she has on opening because isn’t retirement when we were going to spend our days together, after all?
Nope, I’m just not the pickup-and-go type. Lily’s pitching a losing proposition.
Lily jumps out of the car and slams the door on me after I tell her as much. “I’m going anyway,” she snarls, pissed at what
a disappointment I am as a sister. She throws her bag over her shoulder with force and starts walking up the path to her green
front door. Halfway there, she turns and comes back. My sister raps a knuckle on the window, and I lower it. “I can stay with
you until I leave, right?”
“Of course,” I say.
Lily turns away from me and trudges up her tidy front walk, past her impeccably manicured patch of lawn and the two Frontgate
copper urns overflowing with ivy and coleus and bright red geraniums. She slips into her beautiful home, leaving me thinking
about that saying about behind closed doors. I wonder what must have gone on in there to bring Lily to the point where she
wants to scratch her way through the tundra—my sister, whose idea of a dream vacation is working on her tan on some Caribbean
island. I’m sure I’ll find out eventually. Lily tells me everything. Whether I want to hear it or not.
When I pull into the parking lot at the strip mall that conveniently houses three of my errand destinations, I have a full
screen of text messages.
Annie reminding me about the bananas. Mom’s podiatrist confirming her appointment for tomorrow. My husband asking if I can come to Home Depot with him. And Eric. Asking if Lily is with me, because she is not answering her phone.
I add bananas to the food-shopping list, text Tim back and tell him I can go to Home Depot later this afternoon, and ignore
Eric. Until my phone rings. Despite seeing his name on the caller ID and feeling the prickly sensation of anxiety across my
skin and knowing no good can come of this, I answer it.
“Where is she?”
This is so not right. I’ve covered for Lily more times than I can count—in high school when she told our parents she was staying
with me, when I faked a reference for a job she quit after three weeks—but this is beyond my job description. Just hang up. “I don’t know, Eric. I’m not my sister’s keeper,” I say, knowing it’s a lie.
“That’s a laugh. She’s supposed to be at the store. Today is the sidewalk sale, she knows how important this is. I’m here
by myself.” This is what comes from marrying someone based on the criteria that they are good in bed and don’t bore you.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He waits a beat. “Oh, you heard.” Not an ounce of contrition in his stupid voice.